No one can accuse The Big Lemon of ostrich-like behaviour. The latest twist from The Big Lemon is an open appeal to its patrons, appearing yesterday on its website.
The essence of it is that the traffic commissioner is refusing to allow The Big Lemon to cancel its service in less than the statutory 56 days (we thank an anonymous commenter for copying the official VOSA notification). The Big Lemon cannot, however, continue to that proposed January end date and for them it’s a case of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22:
Either The Big Lemon can ignore the commissioner, pull the plug and risk losing its operator’s licence.
Or The Big Lemon, at vast expense and with the support of other operators & agency drivers, can try to maintain a service to ensure its licence is available for any future plans.
Either way, there are significant risks. So, it’s decided to elicit a public appeal.
It will be interesting to see if The Big Lemon is successful. In its favour is (a) it has been very upfront with its passengers, never hiding ostrich-like from its difficulties, and (b) the decision’s probably been taken by VOSA staff at Leeds rather than the commissioner himself.
On the other hand, can you imagine other operators going about their businesses in this fashion and getting away with it? Might that be regarded as unprofessional?
The issue reminds me of another yellow bus company in the Western Traffic Area (not *the* yellow bus company!), operating one day and ceasing the next. That was in March 1988. The then traffic commissioner’s penalty was to prevent said yellow operator from registering a service in Dorset again. Perhaps this wasn’t as strict as it sounded—as Badger Vectis clearly had no plans to do so, anyway.
It would appear that in Brighton, The Big Lemon *does* have such plans. We'd say The Big Lemon was somewhat in the soup.
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Lemon: Latest Twist
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7 comments:
Is TBL is trying to make the Traffic Commissioner out as unsupportive of small businesses and inflexible? Every industry has their rules. Starting, varying or canceling a bus service in 56 days is one of ours.
Sorry, Lemon by name and Lemon by nature. To be honest to try and go up against Brighton & Hove was a mistake - some mickey mouse operator like First perhaps, but not Brighton & Hove.
This is typical of small operators which try and cream off the loads from the big boys - I know that they tried to be innotive - but why not in Haywards Heath or Worthing, but Brighton - forget it...
"I know that they tried to be inno(va?)tive - but why not in Haywards Heath or Worthing, but Brighton - forget it..."
He was lucky in some respects that Brighton and Hove simply ignored him...I suspect if he HAD gone into Worthing against an operator like Stagecoach he'd have elicited a different response altogether!
With regard to the 56 day rule, as I commented on your earlier posting, it will be very interesting to see whether the (Senior) Traffic Commissioner expects the same standards from small operators as big ones...clearly he ought to, as learning to abide by the rules is, at least in part, what gaining a CPC and then hanging onto your "O" licence is all about...
Any other response could be seen as sending the wrong message to all the rest of us...
If the price of that is Mr Druitt employing expensive agency drivers for a few weeks then so be it...even at that price a relatively cheap lesson in commercial reality...which is why running a serious business is a bit different from running an amateur utopian daydream!
Stop Press: According to a news story at the Brighton Evening Argus website, Dominic Ponniard (Tuc Tuc) is up before the Commissioner to explain why he didn't give 56 days notice of his winter shutdown...what's sauce for one?
There is a small operator based not a million miles from , Emsworth, Hants who does'nt seem to have registered a change of route or timetable in four years, despite having altered things around a couple of times in that period, (his biggest route is now totally different from what is registered).
Have VOSA picked him up on this? Have the BSOG auditors noticed? Has the Commissioner had him in court?
No...have they hell...they only bother looking at the big boys, presumably, (and I'm being generous here), because they're an easy target
14 December, 2007 03:24
Further to this discussion, from 7th January, Big Lemon has apparently re-started but on an abbreviated hourly timetable with a big gap in the middle of the day, Mondays to Fridays only...
It looks like two drivers only required...apparently he's applied for two similar registrations, one from 7th January and the second three weks or so later...
Interestingly, according to his website he seems to have re-started before hearing from the Commissioner whether it's ok to do so or not, thus compounding his previous offences...
I can't believe this idiot got his CPC and O Licence...and if the Commissioner lets him continue without at least a Public Enquiry,( like Tuc-Tuc for a far lesser offence), I'll find it even more incredible...
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